Refinery Gas

Definition - What does Refinery Gas mean?

Refinery Gas is the natural gas that is required to power up various columns and units of a refinery. It is the feedstock for an oil refinery. This gas is a mixture of gases generated in the refinery during the processing of crude oil into various petroleum products. The composition of refinery gas directly depends on the composition or the type of crude oil an oil refinery is refining, i.e., light and sweet or heavy and sour crude.

Petropedia explains Refinery Gas

When crude oil undergoes the refining process in an oil refinery in which the higher chain hydrocarbons are broken down into simpler hydrocarbon chains (various petroleum products), there are flue gases that are generated in every process. These gases are collected by a refinery and used as feedstock fuel for operating all the refinery processes. These gases are known as refinery gases.

Using all these flue gases is an act of recycling. Refinery gases have common components such as hydrogen, methane, ethane, butane, propane and ethylene which when burnt produce enough energy to run all the refinery processes. Many a times, refineries along with petroleum products, package the leftover refinery gases that can be sold to other refineries that would like to indulge in the refinery gas trade.